


Flash Forward Flash Back

by azriona



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Meetings, First Time, M/M, Pre-Series, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 02:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3750991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azriona/pseuds/azriona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Past events have a way of sticking with you, years after the fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flash Forward Flash Back

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [His Back Pages](https://archiveofourown.org/works/656707) by [Taz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taz/pseuds/Taz). 



> This is a remix of tazlet’s His Back Pages, written for the Sherlock-remix LJ community. I was too late finishing it to post it on their community page (ah well) but like it too much not to share. The original fic was set in Elementary, with Sherlock/Gregson – the rules allowed us to switch Sherlock Holmes ‘verses, and so I decided to see what would happen if a similar background relationship was given to Sherlock and Lestrade. 
> 
> Beta’ed by ladyprydian and earlgreytea68, and sadly not Brit-picked by anyone, so feel free to ping me on that stuff.

“Why did you tell John you were married?”

 

Greg doesn’t choke on the cigarette in his mouth, but that’s only because he’s not actually smoking it.   He still coughs – apparently, choking isn’t so much a matter of inhaling too much smoke as it is an ingrained response to Sherlock being… well, _Sherlock_.

 

“Technically, you were the one who told him,” Greg replies testily, and finds himself stubbing out the unlit cigarette before he can stop himself.  Another ingrained response, and Greg scowls. 

 

“ _Technically_ , you’re not married anymore, either,” Sherlock points out, and steps next to Greg at the edge of the balcony.  London’s nighttime lights are hazy through the heavy mist that hangs over the city; it isn’t exactly rain, and isn’t exactly humidity, and isn’t exactly pleasant, but the tiny balcony is the only covered location in New Scotland Yard where one can have a fag.  Not that it’s a designated smoking area… but no one else ever remembers it.

 

Except for Sherlock Holmes, of course.  Apparently, being on the patch doesn’t render decent smoking locations worthy of deletion from his bloody brilliant brain.

 

“I don’t see what it matters to you,” says Greg, and throws the crushed cigarette over the edge.  His fingers will still smell of fresh tobacco, but he isn’t going to give Sherlock the satisfaction of watching him smell them. 

 

Sherlock doesn’t speak, and Greg stays tense for a moment, waits for the inevitable cutting remark.   He can feel Sherlock breathing next to him, imagines he can feel the heat emanate from Sherlock’s skin under the layers of cotton and wool, senses Sherlock standing so close in the cold and wet night, the long sinewy length of him—

 

— _clad in leather and jeans, bare skin of his midriff and the whisper of hair on his chest, his eyes bugged out and his head thrown back, long lines of muscle popping out on his neck, blue veins popping out on his arm._

Fuck. Greg shakes his head to dislodge the image, and waits for Sherlock to deduce _that_ too.  He would.

 

“Does it matter to you?” asks Sherlock, and it takes a moment for Greg to realize that Sherlock’s not referencing the memory, and then another moment to remember what it is that Sherlock is talking about.

 

He can’t keep the annoyance out of his voice.  “Does my _marriage_ matter to me?  Yes, Sherlock, I bloody well think it should.”

 

“Not what I meant,” says Sherlock.  “It’s ten years in June, isn’t it?”

 

_I’m married_ , Greg had told him, the sweet skinny thing that reeked of cigarette smoke, light eyes lined with dark circles that weren’t all drawn in with kohl. 

 

_Does it matter_?the sweet young thing had asked, from his knees, looking up with red lips and pale skin and it hadn’t mattered, of course not.  It was only the once.

 

“Twelve,” says Greg, testily, and fuck all, he reaches into his inner coat pocket, fumbling for the nearly squashed pack of cigarettes. There’s eight left, miraculously not beaten to a pulp, considering the pack has been riding in his coat for the last seven months.  Twelve cigarettes unsmoked since… what, last November?  That’s got to be a record.  For him, at least.

 

Before he can slide the pack back home, Sherlock reaches over and plucks it out of his hands.  “Tsk, tsk, Detective Inspector.  And you were so determined to show me a good example.”

 

“Sod off, I’m not smoking them,” snaps Greg as he snatches the pack back.  “Just… holding them.”

 

“Mmm,” Sherlock hums, and the condescension in his voice almost makes Greg laugh, because bloody hell, _that_ hasn’t changed in ten years, not a bit.

 

“You’re looking in the wrong place,” the skinny junkie had said from the other side of the police tape.  Deep dark London night, just as wet and miserable as this one, and Greg had been freezing under his regulation coat, his new haircut leaving the back of his neck unexpectedly exposed to the cold air. 

 

And then the junkie, thin with a batch of curly dark hair, standing at the side of the crime scene, hanging over the tape and looking bored and disgusted all at once. 

 

“The murder weapon is _behind_ the skip, not twenty feet in front of it.  _God_.”

 

Greg had been the only officer close enough to hear him, and he might have been somewhat green, but he wasn’t stupid.  “Who said there was a murder weapon?”

 

“Of _course_ there’s a murder weapon, you’re a bunch of pigs scouring a dark and dank alley in the Docklands at half two on a Saturday morning.  Hardly looking for the Holy Grail, are you, hmm?”

 

It was the _hmm_ that made Greg stand straight up and march over to the boy, who watched him come closer with a look that was far more amused than any junkie facing off a police officer ought to have worn. 

 

“Where do they _hire_ you lot?” wondered the boy, as if he was unaware of Greg approaching, or that he was loudly insulting a group of people who could make life infinitely difficult for him.  “I don’t like to compare humans to chimpanzees – terrible insult to the chimpanzees – but there was this trip to the zoo in school, I saw demonstrations of monkeys looking for hidden objects that showed more competency than what I’ve seen so far in the last ten minutes.”

 

“And why would _you_ know where I should find anything in this alley?”  Greg tried to pull every menacing bone and muscle in his body into full display, but the boy just scoffed, clearly unimpressed.

 

“Because even _high_ I’m clearly more intelligent than any of you lot.”

 

“You realize you just admitted to a _police officer_ that you’re _high_ , right?”

 

The boy waved his hand. “I didn’t say I was high _now_.”

 

Greg laughed.  He couldn’t help it. 

 

“Fine.  Tell me why you think there’s anything behind the skip—“

 

“ _Murder. Weapon,_ ” said the boy, over-enunciating as expecting Greg to repeat after him.

 

“I’m not saying that’s what we’re looking for or not.  I’m just saying that if you don’t explain why you think there’s something behind that skip, I’m going to take you in under reasonable suspicion of illegal drug use and we’ll just see how high you’re currently not – _hmm_?”

 

The boy gave Greg an almost appreciative look.  “Don’t do that, you sound ridiculous.  Look at the skip; it’s flush up against the wall. Skips are never flush against the wall; they’re always at odd angles because the lorries aren’t able to put them back correctly.  Clearly, someone’s been over there shoving the skip around to conceal something they don’t want found – and since there’s the lot of you looking about it stands to reason there’s something you believe worth looking for in this alley.  As I said, only thing worth finding at half two is a murder weapon – unless you _are_ looking for the Holy Grail, in which case there’s a perfectly good sex club by that name two streets over but I can see by your finger you’re recently married and probably trying to stay on the straight and narrow – emphasis on the narrow, of course, if not the straight.”

 

Greg’s head spun; he couldn’t do anything but stare at the kid, whose tone had someone, in the span of a few minutes, gone from strung out junkie looking for a laugh, to the reasonably intelligent and posh tones of a kid straight out of Eton, by way of Oxbridge.

 

“Who the hell are you?” he asked, more to cover his amazement than because he really thought the junkie would answer.

 

“Probably a knife,” added the kid thoughtfully.  “But I’m not sure about that.”

 

“Oh, _now_ you’re not certain about something?”

 

The boy didn’t answer.  He stared straight into Greg’s eyes, unblinking, his mouth just open enough to let his tongue peek out onto the dry skin of his lips.  Without breaking his gaze, the kid reached over, threaded his fingers into Greg’s coat pocket, and pulled out the pack of cigarettes Greg had bought earlier that night.  He shook out two and grinned at Greg before reaching over to slide the packet back into the coat, letting his fingers linger on Greg’s chest.

 

“The name’s Holmes.  For services rendered,” said the kid, brandishing the stolen cigarettes.  His voice was more of a whisper than speech, and he never once breaking eye contact with Greg.  “Got a light?”

 

Greg felt the light pressure from the kid’s – _Holmes’_ – fingers, and tried to swallow.  It took a few times, and God if Holmes didn’t notice every attempt.  Of course he did – even if the expression on his face didn’t change.

 

“Don’t go anywhere,” Greg said gruffly, and turned back to the scene.  “Oi!  Have any of you lot tried looking behind the skip?”

 

It was hours before the paperwork was done, before the knife that was behind the skip had been properly tagged and recorded and sent on for processing.  Greg didn’t expect to find Holmes still waiting by the tape.  Who expected a junkie to actually listen?

 

Greg was already past the entrance to the alley when Holmes spoke.  “You said to wait.”  Sour and annoyed, the picture of a posh git being put out by those beneath him, and wanting to make sure everyone knew it.

 

Greg stopped, but didn’t turn around.  His chest felt oddly light, his head was full of cigarette smoke and the fug of having been awake for far too long. 

 

It was a terrible idea.  It was _all_ a terrible idea, he should keep walking, go home to his wife, slide naked between the body-warm sheets of their bed, kiss her on the back of the neck and wait for her to complain about his stink.

 

He stopped walking.

 

“Thought a junkie knew better to wait for a copper when he’s high,” replied Greg, and hears Holmes walk closer.

 

“Wore off hours ago, you wouldn’t find anything in my bloodstream now.  Regrettably, but you can’t arrest a bloke for wanting.”

 

Holmes was at his back now, standing just at his arm.  Greg felt the breath on his neck, almost a whisper.

 

Aberdeen, Greg realized.  His wife had left that morning for a hen night in Aberdeen. 

 

“You so sure about that?” asked Greg, his voice thick.

 

“Oh, very,” breathed Holmes.  It was blatant, very nearly solicitation, and Holmes might not have been high any more, but he was acting as if he didn’t actually give a fuck either way.

 

“I’m married,” said Greg, but he choked on the words, and when Holmes laughed, he could feel the vibrations in his chest.

 

“Not a deterrent,” said Holmes, and shifted against him, long lines and hard curves and warm, dry skin, and Greg stumbled as he was pulled back into the alley. 

 

“What the fuck, Holmes—“

 

And then nothing at all.  It wasn’t Greg’s mouth that was full, but speech was impossible anyway.

 

An hour later, they were naked in some rat-trap of a flat off Montague, with exposed pipes on the ceiling and a mattress that didn’t bear close inspection. Somehow, London was louder inside the flat than it’d been on the streets outside, people in other flats shouting and banging both walls and each other.

 

The sweat was drying on Greg’s skin, the guilt already building up in his stomach, when Holmes swung his legs over the mattress. In the dark alley, mouthing off, Holmes had given the impression of being just out of college, a young kid trying to impress.  Naked, he looked older, more worn.  His skin was pockmarked and pale, the knobs of his spine clearly visible next to the bones of his ribcage.

 

“When was the last time you ate?” asked Greg, and Holmes, in the middle of a stretch to the ceiling (God, the kid was tall), went still, before bending over to reach for some item of clothing from the floor.  Greg’s shirt, as it happened.

 

“You’re not my father.”

 

“That’s not what – Jesus.”  Greg rubbed his face with his hand.  The mattress tipped down at his feet; Holmes, crawling back on.  He heard the strike of the match and opened his fingers to see Holmes light one of the stolen cigarettes as he sat cross-legged by Greg’s toes.  “If I was your father, I’d tell you how dangerous it is to smoke in bed.”

 

Holmes blew a puff of smoke out of his mouth in a long, thin trail.  “Keeps the edge off.”

 

“Hunger?”

 

“And other things.”  Holmes’s eyes swept down Greg’s body, strangely detached for all that he’d spent a quick half hour licking every part of it.  “I estimate that at your advanced age, it will take approximately forty minutes before you’re ready for another round.”

 

Greg flushed, and turned away from him, swinging his own legs off the bed and fumbling for his pants.

 

“And what makes you think I want to go again, anyway?”

 

“Well,” said Holmes evenly.  “You’re still here.”

 

_That_ made Greg’s stomach clench, or maybe it was the angle he’d had to contort himself in order to reach his clothes.  “I’m not a faggot.”

 

“Of course not,” said Holmes evenly.  “If you were, you’d hardly participate in the charade of marriage.  Bisexual, as a general term.  I don’t care,” added Holmes.  “That you’re married.”

 

“Good,” said Greg.  “As it happens, I _do_ , which is why I’m leaving.”

 

Pants, socks, trousers, vest, shoes.  His coat was by the door – his shirt was on Holmes.  Mostly dressed, Greg stood towering over the bed, and reached out his hand, hoping he wouldn’t actually have to tell the kid to take the shirt off.

 

Holmes looked up at him, the cigarette already half gone.  The shirt hung loosely from his shoulders.  Slowly, he slipped it off – one shoulder first, than the other.

 

“I helped you today,” he said, the shirt still wrapped around him like a stole.

 

“Lucky guesses.”

 

“Not lucky.  _Looking_.  You could use me.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“It wasn’t boring.  That alley, where you were looking, where that girl was killed.”

 

Greg rolled his eyes.  “Glad to know it was amusing for you.”

 

“Give me another one,” said Holmes, and he slid forward on the mattress, so that he was nearly straddling Greg’s legs, his mouth dangerously close to Greg’s crotch.  His cheeks looked impossibly soft next to the rough fabric of Greg’s trousers.  Holmes looked straight up at Greg’s face, hooded eyes and wet lips; he whispered, eagerly, anxiously.  “Let me see another scene.  I want to know if I can see it again, if I can tell you who did it and how just by _looking_.”

 

Holmes’s breath was warm on Greg’s stomach.  Greg swallowed, hard.  It would be so _fucking easy_ , just to agree and feel that mouth on his cock again….

 

And then the shirt slipped down, and it might have been the shadows in the room, the way they played on the crook of Holmes’s arms.  Greg knew better.  The track marks were dark bruises on Holmes’s pale skin, and he was just another junkie looking for his next hit, legal or not.

 

“My shirt, please,” said Greg, stiff and cold, and he must have done it right this time, because Holmes straightened with the shock of it, his face going in an instant from soft and warm to cold and distant.

 

Greg had to turn away to put on the shirt, so that Holmes didn’t see his fingers tremble.

 

“I’m not letting a junkie on a crime scene,” he said into the silent room. 

 

He wouldn’t, either.  After that night, he wouldn’t see Holmes again for five years, when the bloody bastard showed up, clean and sober and all too happy to tell all and sundry why the man they’d arrested could not have possibly done the crime because of the condition of his shoelaces.

 

“Does it matter?  If I can solve the crime for you?”

 

And _oh_ , how _that_ had stung.  Because it wasn’t _Holmes_ who was meant to be solving the crimes.

 

His wince must have shown on his face – or maybe the rolling black annoyance and the sick feeling of guilt that was in his stomach.  Holmes answered his own question a moment after asking it.

 

“Yes,” said Holmes in the dank Montague Street flat.  “Of course it would.  What a good _detective_ you are, seeing me for what I am so _clearly_.”

 

Greg tucked the shirt in, oh so carefully because _God_ , Holmes was sure to be watching his every move and Greg wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of a peep show now.  He slid the coat on almost gratefully, as if it was armor for battle.

 

(Battle indeed: the next five years fighting to see the world as clearly and obviously as that junkie in the alley had done while he was killing himself with drugs; the five years after that, trying to keep the rest of CID from doing what the drugs no longer had opportunity to try.)

 

There wasn’t anything to do but go.  Greg wanted to leave a tenner, so the kid could at least get a sandwich.  He’d have given it to him, without the sex, but after what they’d done… no.  Better to not, even if leaving Holmes so obviously hungry rubbed the wrong way.

 

The box of cigarettes fell out of his coat pocket as he reached in to check for his keys.  It hit the floor with a soft crush, and on impulse, Greg decided to ignore it.  Let the kid have them – nicotine was at least better than smack, or heroin, or whatever else he was shooting up his veins. 

 

Holmes had already stolen two; what was half a dozen more?  If Greg had known that Sherlock Holmes would find him five years later, and keep up the habit of stealing cigarettes and crime scenes from him, he might have changed his mind.

 

“You’re clever, you know,” he said, staring at his hand on the doorknob.  “That thing with the skip.  You could be useful out there.”

 

Holmes scoffed.  “Useful,” he snorted.  “ _Boring_.”

 

Greg didn’t say the obvious – that dead was just as boring, if not worse.  “If you say so,” he said, mildly.

 

On the balcony, Sherlock lights the cigarette, cupping his hand around it to keep the chill wind from blowing it out.  Greg watches him, the way his shoulders curve in, the sliver of skin that peeks out above his coat collar, under the curls, until he lengthens out again, lets his hand drop down to his side and blows a stream of smoke into the night, just as smoothly and sweetly as he had ten years before.

 

“Waste of nicotine, _holding_ them,” says Sherlock, and Greg snorts.

 

“Should just let you have the pack and be done with it,” he says, and sets the pack on the balcony, before leaning on his arms and looking out into the night. 

 

“I regret that my association with you caused you such shame,” says Sherlock stiffly.

 

Greg looks over at him.  They’ve never talked about it, the night they met; from the first (second) day, Sherlock had seemed to be content to ignore what had happened between them, as if their acquaintance had begun five years ago, and not ten.  As if he hadn’t come searching Greg out, blood tests proving his sobriety in his back pocket, and the solution to the current crime spree on his lips.

 

Greg wonders why it’s so important to Sherlock for John to know.  What good would it be, to know that your flatmate had a one-night stand with the detective inspector he sometimes works for?  In Greg’s view, it’s more sordid than not. 

 

He’s missing something.  He wishes he was clever enough to see it.  He almost does, just the wisp of it, when Sherlock exhales again, another long slow stream of smoke that curls like the old familiar feeling in Greg’s stomach, looking at the long lines of Sherlock Holmes standing so close.

 

“You’re such a fucking pain in the arse,” says Greg, and leans with his back to the balcony.  _“_ You have to bring this up t _en years later_ , Sherlock.  _Christ_.”

 

“You didn’t want me to bring it up.”

 

“Not because I was ashamed,” snaps Greg.  “Christ, Sherlock, do you think anyone would have taken you seriously if they’d known how we got started?  And yes, I told Watson I’m married, _because I’m bloody well married_ , no matter what you think you see when you look at my shoes.”

 

“Your trouser hems, actually.”

 

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” says Greg, and turns back to the view of London.  He’s almost smiling now, as if Sherlock dredging up old memories is exactly the conversation he _wants_ to have in the middle of a case that neither of them have actually solved yet.

 

“I don’t care if all of Scotland Yard knows we’re sleeping together,” says Sherlock.

 

“ _Past_ tense.”

 

Sherlock lets the correction slide; instead, he takes another drag on the cigarette.  Greg’s never been very good at determining Sherlock’s moods, but even he can tell the way the man’s shoulders have relaxed.

 

“But you do,” Sherlock continues.  “It was always more about protecting yourself, than about protecting me.”

 

“Oh, fuck you,” says Greg, annoyed because he’s not actually sure now that Sherlock isn’t partially right.  The smile is frozen on his face, though, almost painful in its sudden insincerity.  “What exactly do you want out of this interrogation, Sherlock?”  

 

Sherlock frowns.  “We already questioned the suspect—”

 

“I meant from _me_.”

 

Sherlock stubs the cigarette out on the balcony rail; the sparks dance briefly in the air before being put out by the heavy mist. 

 

“You didn’t answer my question.”

 

“What question?”

 

Sherlock throws the cigarette stub over the balcony; it disappears almost immediately into the night.  “It’s not so much that you told John you are married – it’s more _why_ you told it to him at all.”

 

“I—”  But Sherlock is gone, back into the building, and Greg is left on the balcony alone to try to unravel the riddle Sherlock’s left for him.

 

“You’ll want to talk to the brother,” Sherlock had said, that day five years after their first meeting.  He hadn’t said anything else, just handed over a folded piece of paper that turned out to be the results of a blood draw from that morning, detailing that every possible intoxicant was not present in his body.  “And then you’ll want to dredge the pond in Kensington Park, I think you’ll be somewhat surprised as to what you’ll find.  Or not, if you’ve any imagination whatsoever.”

 

They hadn’t kept in touch.  Greg had only given passing thought to the young kid with the track marks and the red lips over the intervening years.  It was only the once; it shouldn’t have stuck with him as hard as it did. 

 

Looking at him now, Greg sometimes finds it hard to believe that _Holmes_ has grown into _Sherlock_.  Sherlock is competent, if not kind; focused, if not professional.  And Greg has grown to like him, after a fashion.  Or maybe just _like_ him.  He hasn’t really analyzed it before. 

 

The cigarette pack sits on the balcony ledge, rain drops glistening on the cellophane.  It’s open; the remaining fags will be damp now, more or less ruined. 

 

Greg thinks about pocketing them, throwing them in the nearest bin.  Instead, he leaves them for the next bloke, and goes inside to find Sherlock.


End file.
